Height is no excuse, just ask Janet Evans, she was 5'2" when she won her gold medals, she has grown maybe a couple of inches since retiring, but is now making a comeback and has already qualified for the Olympic trials.
A lot of it is about technique under the water and arm turnover speed, if you can turnover shorter arms faster you can go faster.

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check out my blog http://theswimmingtriathlete.com

Another exception - Sheila Taormina. 5'2".

Another interesting factoid - Johnny Weismuller swam a 57 sec 100 free with his head sticking out of the water practiallly.
Technique!

As I mentioned, a 9 year old girl 12 inches shorter than I am swims twice as fast as I do... I know Janet Evans is short, but the average height of American Olympic female swimmers is 5'8 and of males is 6'3. There is no doubt that TECHNIQUE BEING EQUAL that height can come into play.

The question I had was what effect does height have on speed?

I was KIDDING when I said I was looking for an excuse for being slow. (That is what pink font means, doesn't it?)

Sorry. While perhaps the majority of female world record holders in swimming are taller than average (and holy muscle), there are plenty of freaking fast ladies who are pint-sized.

As a college swimmer, a short person, and now a masters swim coach, I was just thinking the other day, what my generic response now is going to be when some triathlete starts to swim with our program and says "how can I get fast?"

The answer is---
*volume (parts of the year where you are swimming 5-6x/week)
*intensity (every swim workout should be hard, maybe 1 easy per week, max)
*coaching/form (join masters program)
*strength (paddles and weights)
*natural feel for the water (born with it, childhood helps, acquired in adulthood rarely)
*great attitude (no excuses about height allowed)
*time (probably years)

A non-swimmer is almost never* going to get into that "swimmer range" (I define for women as sub 20min 1500m, sub 57min 2.4mi), but they can get damn close, within 2-3min for 1500 and 5-10min for 2.4mi. Given enough time and volume and good coaching.

*obviously there are exceptions

Sorry I got off on a tangent there....

I think you are right in that being tall may help to gain you that extra bit that it takes to be truly elite. But I think that it is likely only a few % of speed. (Based on observation alone....) you see very fast college swimmers at all heights, you start to see olympic trials swimmers at mostly taller heights, and then at the world record holder level, yes, the majority are 6 feet tall but there are fantastic exceptions.

a few % max....

I wonder if there are differences too.

Like maybe successful shorter swimmers use a higher stroke rate because they can't get the same leverage and pull that someone with long arms can get, but they can move their arms quicker???

Thank you for the detailed advice, npda. I am not trying to become elite. I wasn't actually asking for advice on how to get faster. There is plenty of that on slowtwitch, every single day--conflicting advice, even. I could never put in the mileage that is required to become elite or FOP--no time for that as I am busy with many other activities beside triathlon. In fact, the thread in the main forum asking the running mileage for Olympic distance triathletes made me laugh! 30 miles being a low number for running per week--the most mileage I have ever done is 14 miles in a week! I will never again wonder why I get no higher than AG 3rd place in local races. If I followed suggested mileage for all three disciplines, my life would be all triathlon, all the time.

I am seeing a swim specific coach at the moment in fact, but not so I can set a world record as a middle aged non-swimmer. It is so I can find out if I am making *major* errors. There are so many things wrong with the way I swim and I'd be happy if I could consistently do a 1:35 100m, which is not remotely elite by any one on slowtwitch's measure. What is that, half the speed of most of the prolific posters here?

As someone with a scientific background, and being a bit of a physics and numbers nerd, I just wanted to ask: what effect does height have on speed.

There are so many amazing people on slowtwitch who know minutiae on everything triathlon that I was hoping someone had the answer.

Does that clear things up or I am going to get another person suggesting that height is not important, that they know someone 36 inches tall that does a 1:10 100m? Bring it on ;-)

My swim instructor suggested that someone 5'3 might have a stroke count in the low 20s while someone 6'0 might expect to have one in the high teens for 25 m. (Not elite swimmers, but what we can aim for in the clinic). I thought that was interesting. It makes sense that a shorter person would have a higher stroke rate (technique being equal).

Found an interesting set of stats, though:

Female Anthropometric Parameters

Age

Anthropometric data for female swimmers are presented in table 7. The average age in all female swim strokes is 18.6 ± 2.6 years. The youngest female Olympic Trials qualifiers are distance swimmers – 17.4 ± 2.8 years, the oldest are breastrokers – 19.6 ± 2.1 years. But the difference in age between events is statistically non-significant.

Height and weight

The average height and weight for females is 173.0 ± 5.5 cm and 65.6 ± 6.6 KG, respectively. Freestyle sprinters are the tallest (174.7 ± 4.5 cm) and lightest (64.4 ± 6.4 KG) between events. The lowest height is for flyers and IM swimmers - 171.1 ± 6.9 cm and 171.5 ± 5.3, respectively. Differences between swim strokes in weight and height parameters are statistically non-significant.

The relationship between body weight and height is expressed in ratio:

weight/height2

This ratio is called body mass index (BMI). The BMI is the lowest for freestyle sprinters. The BMI is close related to the total body fatness and finds wide use in studies. Backstrokers have higher weight (70.8 ± 5.9 KG) and the height is close to other events (174.3 ± 4.9 cm). They have the highest BMI.

Sitting height

Sitting height reflects a length of trunk. The average of this parameter is 90.5 ± 3.7 cm. There are significant differences between events. Female backstrokers have significant higher sitting height (longer trunk) than IM swimmers – 93.3 ± 2.1 cm and 88.8 ± 4.0 cm, respectively. Differences between other swim events are statistically non-significant.

The relationship between sitting height and height provides an estimate of trunk length and relative leg length. It can be evaluated as ratio:

sitting height/height x 100

By subtraction the remaining percentage is accounted to the leg length. The highest sitting height/height ratio is for backstrokers, the lowest for IM-ers. It means that females backstrokers have relative longer trunk and shorter legs in comparison with IM-ers.

Source of this according to the above quote is: http://www.usaswimming.org/USASWeb/Deskt…

Yes, I understood the pink font. :)
It the effect on height often depends on the distance of the race...many sprinters are taller than your distance swimmers, and unfortunately us gals don't get to swim the longest pool event at the Olympics. There are just too many variables to try to determine just what effect height has on speed, the water is a the great equalizer.
I'm short too...I've beaten people taller than me, lost to people taller than me, beaten people shorter than me, and lost to people shorter than me.

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check out my blog http://theswimmingtriathlete.com

That's cool. Thanks for sharing. It is true, based on observation that FR sprinters are taller and leaner, and IMers and flyers can be stockier.

Sorry for my malapropos response earlier... I had JUST coached that evening and about ten new triathletes had showed up with the "I'm not a swimmer. Where's the slow lane. I suck." defeatist attitude! I hate that- everyone can improve, I just know it.

1:35/100M is nothing to scoff at. Everyone on the main forum talks a big game, but doing 1:35/100m I think will put you above average at a regular age group triathlon.

Interesting! I love stats :-)

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

I think it could be similar to tall runners vs. short runners. Granted tall runners have a longer stride and can "cover" more ground, but then they have more blood to move, more weight to carry, and more surface area to cool. I think in the end it all balances out. It comes down to technique and training not inherent physical advantages versus disadvantages.

My sister in law is 5'2" and can out swim my husband who is 5'10" they have been competitively swimming since the same age. Technique and not height won there.

Btw I am 5'2"

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Heather Sweet
http://thesweetsadventure.blogspot.com/